The Wizarding World is one of the most popular franchises in the world, thanks to J.K. Rowling's novels, as well as theme parks, video games, stage plays and (of course) the Harry Potter movies. The property will expand shortly with the forthcoming Harry Potter TV show, which debuts its first season in December. The BTS documentary about Season 1 showed off some amazing animatronics, one of which might mean a beloved scene from the first book is heading to the screen.
Anticipation is building for the Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone series, which is expected to be a more accurate book-to-screen adaptation than the film. In the documentary Finding Harry: The Craft Behind the Magic (which is streaming with an HBO Max subscription), Creature Effects Design Supervisor John Nolan debuted realistic owls, as well as an animatronic for Ron's rat Scabbers. We even got to see one where the rodent is rigged to bite a finger. Check it out below:
Scabbers looks incredibly real, which is exciting enough. But the news of a biting animatronic piqued the interest of Potter fans who know and love the first novel. Namely because Ron's pet rat bites Goyle on the Hogwarts Express after Draco's sidekick tried to steal Harry's candy. An excerpt from The Philosopher's Stone reads:
Scabbers the rat was hanging off his finger, sharp little teeth sunk deep into Goyle’s knuckle – Crabbe and Malfoy backed away as Goyle swung Scabbers round and round, howling, and when Scabbers finally flew off and hit the window, all three of them disappeared at once.
Given the fact that John Nolan and his team made a second Scabbers animatronic that's able to bite, plenty of Potterheads out there think that this scene from the book will indeed make it into Season 1 of the TV series. And this is just one example of content from the novels that will finally get their moment when Harry Potter is adapted into a TV series. Plenty of plot lines and entire characters were scrapped for the movies, in order to prevent them from being too long.
The first teaser for Harry Potter Season 1 was recently dropped, thrilling hardcore fans who are ready to return to Hogwarts with a new cast of actors. The pressure is on for the show to deliver, but fans who love the novels are thrilled at the concept of it being more accurate to the source material than the beloved eight-movie franchise. Each book is expected to get its own season of TV, allowing for a much more expanded story.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is set to debut on Christmas as part of the 2026 TV schedule. The documentary Finding Harry: The Craft Behind the Magic is super popular on HBO Max, and is helping to buoy fan excitement about what's to come. That includes the look and feel of Scabbers.
